World’s first text message ever sent was sold earlier this week for $121,000 or 100,000 euros in Paris as a non-fungible token at a Paris auction house. The text message “Merry Christmas”, which was sent on December 3, 1992, was put up for auction by Vodafone. Neil Papworth, an engineer at Vodafone, sent the SMS from his computer to a manager in the UK who received this message on his 2-kg Orbitel device. The Orbitel device is similar to a desk phone but cordless and with a handle.
“They were in the middle of end-of-year events so he sent him the message ‘Merry Christmas’,” head of development for the Aguttes Auction House in Paris Maximillen Aguttes said. Selling of intangible goods is not legal in France. Thus, the auction house has packaged the text message in a digital frame that displays the code and communication protocol.
The buyer will get a replica of the original communication protocol that transmitted the SMS and proceeds from this transaction will go to the United Nations Refugee Agency—UNHCR.
For the uninitiated, non-fungible tokens or NFTs are a type of digital asset that gained popularity this year as NFT artworks sold for millions of dollars. These digital objects (images, videos, music and text) exist on a blockchain – a record of transactions kept on networked computers and each NFT has a unique digital signature.
(With agency inputs)
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